Kabul, April 3 (AFP/APP):The Taliban’s supreme leader on Sundayordered a ban on poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, warning that thehardline Islamist government would crack down on farmers planting thecrop.
Afghanistan is the world’s biggest producer of poppies, the source ofsap that is refined into heroin, and in recent years production andexports have only boomed.
“All Afghans are informed that from now on cultivation of poppy hasbeen strictly prohibited across the country,” said a decree issued bySupreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.
The order was read out by government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid at agathering of reporters, foreign diplomats and Taliban officials.
“If anyone violates the decree the crop will be destroyed immediatelyand the violator will be treated according to the sharia law,” itadded.
It is not the first time the fundamentalist group has vowed to outlawthe trade. Production was banned in 2000, just before the group wasoverthrown by US-led forces in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
During their 20-year insurgency against foreign forces, the Talibanheavily taxed farmers cultivating the crop in areas under theircontrol, experts have said.
It became a key resource for the group to generate funds.Poppy farmer Abdul Rahman told AFP that Sunday’s ban was a blow to hislivelihood.
“We have taken loans to cultivate this… If these crops are destroyedour income will be gone,” said Rahman, who is from the southernprovince of Kandahar — the Taliban’s de facto power centre.
“We too are not fond of cultivating this crop and are fed up with it.We know our future generations will be addicted to it but we arecompelled to cultivate.”
– Tough to enforce ban –
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The United States and NATO forces tried to curb poppy cultivationduring their two decades in Afghanistan by paying farmers to growalternative crops such as wheat or saffron.
But their attempts were thwarted by the Taliban, who controlled themain poppy-growing regions and derived hundreds of millions of dollarsfrom the trade, experts have said.
Author David Mansfield, who has written a book on Afghanistan’s opiumtrade, said the Taliban would find it difficult to enforce the latestban, as farmers had invested considerable resources in a crop that wasready to harvest.
“It’s not just opium (farmers) smell, it’s cash & what it buys after acold winter of rising food prices & economic crisis,” Mansfieldtweeted. Afghanistan’s economic and humanitarian crisis hasdeepened since foreign donors cut off aid to the country in theaftermath of the Taliban’s takeover of the country in August lastyear.
Mansfield said the ban was an attempt by the Taliban to divert thepolitical debate in the country away from issues such as “girlseducation & human rights”.
Last month the Taliban shut all secondary schools for girls, justhours after reopening them for the first time since seizing power,triggering international outrage.
Afghan media reports, meanwhile, have said poppy production hasincreased in two southern provinces, Kandahar and Helmand, since theTaliban returned to power, but did not provide data.
Afghanistan has a near-monopoly on opium and heroin, accounting for 80to 90 percent of global output, according to the United Nations Officeon Drugs and Crime.
The amount of land used for planting poppies hit a record high in 2017and has averaged around 250,000 hectares in recent years, roughly fourtimes the level of the mid-1990s, UN figures show. According to a UN survey in 2020, poppies were grownin 22 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.
